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Dubai (dpa) - Arab governments in the Gulf nations have despite staunch conservative traditions slowly begun to empower women: One outward indication of this is the increase in women being appointed to ministerial positions.
In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the government is appointed by the prime minister and ratified by the president, two main ministerial positions have been given to women since the cabinet was reshuffled last month.
The social affairs portfolio was given to 48-year-old Mariam Mohammed Khalfan al-Roumi, while Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi has kept her position as economy minister.
In neighbouring Kuwait, where women traditionally enjoy more freedoms than in the rest of the Gulf, parliament last year extended full political rights to women allowing them to vote and run for office in the next parliamentary elections.
Kuwaiti women had fought for years to get political rights, but conservative members of parliament had earlier blocked a decree by the former emir to empower them politically.
In June last year, Kuwait named US-educated women's rights activist Maasuma al-Mubarak as the emirate's first female minister, appointing her minister of planning and administrative development.
Oman became the first of the oil-rich Arab Gulf states to give women voting rights in 1994 and the sultanate has three female ministers.
Qatar has one female minister and has given the Arab world a role model in Sheikha Moza, the wife of the emir and a "modern and educated" Arab woman who is heading a project to bring major international educational institutions to the country.
Early last year, Bahrain's king named Fatima al-Blushi, a professor in Bahrain University, to the cabinet. She was the second woman to join the Bahraini government after Nada Hafidh, who holds the health portfolio.
The situation is however quite different in Saudi Arabia compared to other Gulf nations.
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz told women in December 2005 to be patient and only to ask for what is "possible."
Saudi women are not allow to drive, to travel without a written permit from a male close relative or do many legal transactions without a husband, a father or a male tutor.
Activists scored one victory last year when women were permitted to run for seats in local chambers of commerce, and two were elected for the chamber in Jeddah.
Women are however still banned from running and voting in municipal government elections which were held for the first time in the kingdom last year.
Segregation of sexes is strict in the kingdom and women are only allow in professions where they don't have to mingle with men.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
